


need me less, and I'll want

by summerstorm



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary forgets the pretext she used to bring Matthew up to her bedroom the second he sets foot in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	need me less, and I'll want

**Author's Note:**

> Historical accuracy, what historical accuracy. I'm not even going to pretend this isn't completely self-indulgent, if relatively non-explicit, porn. (However, I could say it's also, on some level, self-indulgent character analysis, and that would be true.) This is a """missing scene""" (three sets of quotation marks necessary!) from 1.06, and I shamelessly borrowed the title from a wonderful poem by Marilyn Hacker.

Mary forgets the pretext she used to bring Matthew up to her bedroom the second he sets foot in it.

Judging by his reluctance to acquiesce in her request, she knows with a fair amount of certainty that he is aware there is nothing — no inanimate object, at least — she would like to show him; either way, if he'd not noticed before, it should not be long now before he does.

He's standing by the door, his eyes shifting towards it as though he isn't entirely comfortable with it being closed, not without knowing why Mary insisted he come up with her. If she were somebody else — if she were a man, perhaps — she might have the liberty of being forthcoming about her intentions. As it is, as much as she would like that, she cannot take the risk without surveying what Matthew's response to such intentions might be.

Still, she takes a step closer; another, and he takes one backwards. Now his back is brushing the wall. He eyes her curiously then, and Mary blinks slowly, lids lingering down for courage, and tilts her head up for a kiss.

It's nothing much: light and superficial, the closest thing to a statement she can make in this situation.

"I do hope I'm not making you uneasy," she says, her perfect hostess voice mellowed, tinted with a softness meant to let him know he mustn't worry.

Matthew swallows roughly, visible in his throat. "Not at all," he tells her.

"For a lawyer," she says, tracing a fingertip along his jawline, "you're not a very good liar."

"Would you rather I be a better one?" Matthew asks. His voice comes easier now; this is a familiar topic to him, it must be. Matthew and his preoccupations with morality. "I much prefer to earn anyone's trust by honest means. I find it a more satisfying accomplishment."

"But you have not tried deceiving," Mary says, shifting slightly away. She's not completely aware of the words coming out of her mouth; she is far too absorbed in the rise and fall of Matthew's chest, instead; the way he licks his lips as subtly as he can, which isn't much; and her own hands slipping beneath the shoulders of his jacket. "You cannot compare two things if you've not tried both."

His frame stiffens when she first tries to tug his jacket down his arms.

"Is something wrong?" she asks carefully, keeping worry far from her tone. It isn't a question, but reassurance; she is fully confident in this situation, and he needn't concern himself with any other possibility.

Still he says, "I wouldn't want to be presumptuous." In the time he takes to phrase the remainder of his message, Mary succeeds in pulling the jacket down to his elbows. "But this is not at all what I expect of you."

Mary quirks an eyebrow at him, and finally does away with his jacket.

"It isn't, nor is it all I desire from you."

"Oh," she says, surprised, not at the words themselves but at the implication. Is he gearing up for— If he is going to ask her to marry him, it shouldn't be this way, or now. It would ruin this moment; she couldn't get it back. Not if they were engaged, with a wedding night in their future; not if she refused him, either. She must put it off. She must rein in this hour, at the very least, to her purposes. "I am sorry to tell you this, Matthew," she tries, "you may think me selfish for it, but at the moment I am rather thinking about what _I_ desire."

He smiles at her, that half smile with the barely tilted head that mean he is not sure what to think of her actions, or her words, or how to respond to them.

She moves to kiss him again, but he pulls back abruptly, hitting his head against the wall just hard enough to make him wince.

"The rumors," he says, as though trying to make something of them.

Mary shakes her head. "Oh, Matthew," she admonishes.

"No," he says, though she doesn't know what he is denying. That he's heard about Mr. Pamuk? That he deems her less for it? That he hasn't brought it up to explain why he is going to leave in seconds? "I've heard some things, I won't lie to you, but my perception of you hasn't changed. If you believe you have to, in any way, allow me to—"

Mary takes a step back. "What? Spoil my virtue?"

"No," Matthew says, far too quickly, and then, softer, his eyes apologetic, "Yes."

"You won't," she says, and grasps handfuls of his shirt, pulling him for a kiss before his adamance gets the best of him.

This time he responds to it, a hand closing around the side of her neck, his mouth parting above hers. His breath is warm on her lips, and he smiles intermittently, as though he is finally understanding Mary wants this as much as he may. Oh, she hopes that is it; she hopes there was a part of him who was worried he was misinterpreting her intentions as his own wishful thinking, and wanted to hold himself back, not her.

He doesn't yield right away when she begins to walk them backwards; the kiss turns slower, she feels, just so, and she wonders if she really must spell it out for him that this is not all she wants. Her hands tighten on his shirt, and she tries again, fists hard on the fabric as she takes a step back and pulls him along with her.

He relents, and it isn't as difficult from there to maneuver them so it is Matthew who walks backwards, and who first feels the height of her bed on the back of his legs. Now he has stopped resisting, he sits down easily; he even lies back on his elbows, watching her as she watches him.

His shirt is rumpled from her hands, and she must have loosened his tie as they made their way here, because it is hanging open from his neck.

She is struck by the thought that she has little reason to be confident; Mr. Pamuk was one lover, one, and she was somewhat shocked and — if not forced — certainly nudged into allowing him in her bed. Her experience is limited; rumors may take off with that little, but not courage.

Of course she wants this; she wants to have Matthew like this, or if she wouldn't have pushed for it, but she's hardly certain about her choices, what they might do now he's here. The collected boldness is there, in the way she meets his eye without a problem, or lets her hands palm his thighs over his trousers, but a great deal of this self-assurance, it occurs to her, is a costume; not quite a lie but definitely a stretch of the truth.

"I like this look on you," she tells Matthew, and takes the surge of bravery from the perplexed look on his face to reach her hand forward, and unbutton his trousers.

He jerks back, which only serves to push him further into her bed. He looks shy, and wary of her, and she thinks back on their talk about propriety; she wonders if she is in the process of breaking any rules he might consider unbreakable.

Oh, well. He at least lifts his hips when she tugs his trousers down his thighs, so it must not be too terrible a loss.

"I'm surprised you know how to work someone out of their clothing," he comments, his tone much too light to be sincerely casual. She looks up to see his eyes shutting as though he already regrets having said anything.

She could spare him — she knows he did not mean it as an affront — but she is not that person. Her chin high, she says, "Perhaps I don't," and lets go of his trousers, leaving them bundled around his thighs.

She hauls her body into straightness and climbs over him, knees on either side of his, her hands firm on her thighs and her back rigid.

"I didn't mean—" he tries.

She cuts him off. "I know perfectly well what you meant, Matthew," she says, voice laced with sweetness.

He opens his mouth again; to stop him from uttering anything else foolish, she leans over and kisses him. His hands come up to her shoulders instinctively, but he doesn't move them at first, not for a while; she has to coax his mouth open this time, too, but that's easier. They go on like that for a short while, until he's sufficiently relaxed to reach a hand across the back of her neck.

Some of her hair loosens out of place, and now she's not fully put together, it feels more natural to move a hand — the one she's not using to hold herself up — to his side, down his stomach until she can cup him through his pants.

As false as her sweetness was before is her coyness now, as she says, "I fear I've not been taught how to help a man out of his clothing," her grasp on him tightening.

He gasps, his head tipping back, and she smiles against his chin, pressing rough kisses to his neck until he hardens fully in her hand. His body is tense, as though she is deliberately holding still, keeping quiet, and Mary will not have that. While silence is not without its advantages, she doesn't want him to be quite so tense.

"I hope you won't think me too forward," she says, the honesty in it surprising her, and sits up. He watches her as though ready to refute her worries, but then he must see the look on her face, the complacent, teasing smirk she can't help, and he wisely shuts his mouth before possibly offending her again.

She only means to undress him from the waist down, touch skin rather than fabric, but as she does, he continually glances at her and away, over and over, biting and wetting his lips. His expression is delightfully unsettled, and she cannot help the thought of pushing him further.

To make sure her frock won't bother her, she rolls the fabric up to her knees, and then she shifts lower in the bed, leans her head down and takes him in her mouth.

His hips buckle immediately, and the, "Oh, God," that comes out his mouth carries so much in it it's hard to make it all out: shock, a little resignation, but above all something she hopes is a much better sign, a soft tinge of happy wanting. "God, I'm sorry," he goes on. "I'm so sorry, that wasn't my intention."

She pulls off and presses her lips together, just a second, before teasing her tongue past her lips and licking a clear strip from base to top of his length. The taste is stronger like this, but she's not put off by it; she teases him with her tongue again, closing her eyes for a moment. She's getting sidetracked. She opens her eyes again, and tries not to blush when she sees her own saliva on him. "Is this not the purpose?" she says, condescendingly. He shouldn't apologize for enjoying her mouth on him. There would be no point in doing it otherwise.

He runs a hand through his hair and his eyes close as though he isn't sure what to say or even how to look at her. She lets none of it deter her; she wraps a hand around the part of him her lips won't reach and swallows him down again, slow at first so it won't be over too soon, progressively working out a rhythm as his hips begin to roll helpfully instead of jerking sharply like before.

It's still not very long before his hands clench in her sheets and the sounds coming from his throat turn to irregular groans and panting. His head turns in her pillow, taking in her scent, and the motion of his body becomes unsteady, fitful. It makes it difficult to breathe, so she draws back, stroking him with wet fingers instead until he spills into her hand, his eyes shut and his stomach taut where she touches him.

For some time, she can't take her eyes off him. She's strangely transfixed by the sight of Matthew like this, partially undressed, very much dishevelled. Her own breathing is audible, now that she pays attention; her stomach rises and falls, but the motion flows from her hips. She can't be still, and neither can she focus, not on anything but Matthew and the way he lost his composure beneath her and how impossibly arousing it is to see — to be the cause of it.

As soon as he regains the ability to speak, he's apologizing again. What bothers Mary is she is as sure as he is as to what he is apologizing for — which is to say, not sure at all.

"It's all right," Mary says, no games this time, no seduction in it. She doesn't have the focus for it. His pupils are still blown wide, and his stomach is damp with sweat wherever Mary touches, underneath his shirt, though why she is holding on escapes her.

When he laughs — at himself, at the state he's in, she imagines, at Mary's hand wiped clean on the sheets — the sound is strained, and so is his voice when he asks Mary,"Could you — hand over my clothes? If it doesn't trouble you."

This is it, she thinks, it's over; not the two of them, necessarily, it's too early to worry and besides, there have been no promises made — but the night. If he is already getting dressed, he will leave, and leave her like this, in a state that's much too humiliating to speak out loud. She would not dare to ask him to return the favour, not when she can barely express herself in her own thoughts, need curled up tight in her stomach as it is.

Still she moves aside to let him slide off her bed; he looks at her as he props himself up on his hands, a small, unsure smile on his face. Watching him pull on the clothes she took off him is excruciating; all Mary can do is stand on her feet and let down her skirt, sitting down on the edge of the bed once she is put together enough, her knees awkwardly knocking together and her hands on her thighs.

It's not very long at all, and yet, when he turns, his expression is confused again, as though this is not what he expected either: Mary sitting prim and composed, the overwhelming pretense of it.

Something flickers in his face, regret perhaps, or, if Mary's honest about what she sees, hesitation, but then he is next to her, pulling her to her feet. She frowns at him, at his hands on the straps of her dress.

"How does this work, exactly?" he asks. "I wouldn't want to ruin it."

Mary bites back a grin. It's strange, but all of a sudden she feels as though she wasn't as comfortable as she thought she was before; now there is relief flooding through her, at being wanted, at the lack of judgment in the way Matthew looks or speaks to her. His new comfort becomes her comfort, and it's much easier, then, to help him help her out of her dress — which is not without its difficulties in theory.

Once she's wearing precious little, he maneuvers her onto the bed with warm hands on her waist. The top of her head is barely brushing an askew pillow when he chooses to distract her from moving any further back. He kisses her mouth, first, firm and clear like a hello, and begins to move down her body, his mouth not leaving her skin for longer than a second at a time.

He pays her earlier teasing forward, in that way and, shortly afterwards, by nosing at her through the thin fabric that stretches between her legs, until Mary is certain it must be soaked through from the combined wetness — hers and that from his mouth.

She hears herself moan, distantly, and he finally hooks down the sides of her lingerie and draws it down.

"Tell me if I do this wrong," he says, but this is new to her as well, and she is much too surprised and absorbed in how good Matthew's tongue feels against her to be any help.

Somehow, he still seems to understand the sounds she fails to hold back, sounds whose meaning even she is not conscious of. His mouth moves constantly, as though testing spots, until a pressure higher than where he started brings a sob-like noise out of her throat. He groans against her and suddenly wraps arms around her thighs, dragging her with him until her legs are almost completely dangling off the edge and he is on his knees on the floor.

His arms let go then, his hands moving to spread her thighs apart again, and the look in his eyes, the glimpse of his half open mouth she catches before he begins to lick at her again, using his fingers as well now — it feels as though he's worshipping her, so much more than as having given into the coaxing of an inappropriately lustful of woman.

Nothing about the sounds he makes suggests to her that he even judges her for this breach of propriety, and she is profoundly grateful for it, temporarily validated. For a split second, she thinks of Sybil, of holding her own opinions and not taking them from anybody else, and then Matthew does something with his fingers and Mary forgets about everything but what's happening within the confines of her bed.

She reaches her fingers into Matthew's hair, holding on and helping him along that way, too, and soon — before she's frustrated, but once her skin is hot and gleaming with sweat and she doesn't have quite the strength to move her hand anymore — she feels the tightness held low in her stomach and lower still blow up in a rush of pleasure, and then little waves. At first it is overwhelming, wonderfully so, but as they become softer, they tone down and begin to feel like relief.

Once the world comes into focus again, she hears herself panting, sees her body still swaying lightly and Matthew looking at her. His wet, swollen lips are on her hipbone now, his hands are steady on her thighs, and his eyes — there is a certain _awe_ in them; it is the only word Mary can think to describe it.

She laughs, just breath, and says, "Now, I hardly think I am worth staring at in this state." She thinks he might smile, but he continues to gaze at her.

A few seconds later, his voice nearly uncomfortable serious, he replies, "You would not say that if you could see yourself."

One of Mary's eyebrows raises; it's hard not to doubt the sincerity of such things, that is all. It's hard, too, however, not to enjoy it, and less than a second has gone by before the dubious look on her face gives way to a pleased smile.

She reaches for the edge of her sheets, covering herself with them inside out, and makes an effort to sit up. "Do you consider this your duty, too? Flattering me after — all of that?"

He looks up at her — oh, God, he's still kneeling on the floor; her eyes squeeze shut for a moment in embarrassment — and reaches a hand to touch her cheek. His thumb rubs softly at her lip.

"Praise loses meaning if you don't give it only when it's earned," he says, and he looks so earnest all Mary can do is smile at him.

Well, smile — and grasp each side of the open collar of his shirt, and urge him up so she can kiss him again.


End file.
